1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a symbol display apparatus used for a game machine, such as a slot machine, an upright pinball machine, and the like.
2. Background Arts
Many game machines such as a slot machine, an upright pinball machine, and the like have a symbol display apparatus. As for the known symbol display apparatus for the game machine, for example, there are a mechanical reel type using reels each of which has plural types of symbols on outer periphery, and a video type displaying simulative reels on a CRT or a liquid crystal display based on graphic data stored on a ROM. These game machines decide a win or loss based on a combination of the symbols completed on a winning line across a symbol display window in stopping the reels.
Whether a winning symbol combination is completed or not is a prime concern of a player, so it is important to arrange various types of symbol combinations for the sake of raising a player's interest in a game. In the mechanical reel type, it is difficult to increase the types and the number of symbols arranged in each reel. So, a symbol display apparatus with a double reel structure is used. This apparatus has at least one reel unit that is composed of an outer reel and an inner reel rotating concentrically and independently each other. The symbol display apparatus with the double reel structure gives variety to the symbol combinations, because each reel unit can carry more types and numbers of symbols.
There is a known way to excite the player's interest in which the winning symbol combination is almost completed up to becoming a riichi situation, and then the last reel makes the game result in loss. The riichi situation is a situation where only a single reel to stop last is still rotating, and where a winning symbol combination will be completed if the last reel displays an objective symbol. In this case, the objective symbol in the last reel slips off the winning line on which the winning symbol combination is almost completed, and stops on another winning line upper or lower thereof. A sense of expectations and near miss originating from this way raises player's excitement to the game.
However, this way has a disadvantage in that the player's expectations for the win decrease according as frequency of the near miss increases, so the game tends to be monotonous.